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UPDATED: Gramigna has retracted what he wrote, and what his source told him. That’s appreciated, but still horseshit.

Apart from this morning, when I called him in a rage, I can honestly say that I’ve never exchanged a single word with Gramigna, despite having helped him promote his dreck-laden site when he started it. His business model is: get local politicians to buy ads, print positive crap about them and negative crap about their opponents. Look for an alternative to completely decimate that business model, coming soon.

If I had written the offending emails – which I didn’t – I would have reprinted them last summer, when they were originally sent. They are alleged to have been sent by Mr. Gramigna’s newest advertising client, Syaed Ali. But I didn’t print them last summer. Indeed, I alluded to them a couple of times only in an off-handed manner. I had theories as to who might have been sending them, but someone in law enforcement somehow landed on Mr. Ali, and he alleges that he was subsequently placed into custody and that his belongings have been confiscated. I’ve gone on record saying that, if what Ali said is true, it’s a grave injustice.

Furthermore, if I had sent them, I wouldn’t have pimped them to mainstream media – I would have posted them on my site contemporaneously so that the TV and other reporters would give me linkage and credit.

But I didn’t write them, I wouldn’t have written them, I have nothing to gain from writing them, and never in my wildest dreams would ever conceive of writing something like that about anyone, much less an elected official.

For Gramigna, acting apparently as a conduit for the flailing Ali, to even suggest that I was behind those emails is a disgrace – and a defamatory one, at that.

I have my disagreements with the Brown administration – I don’t like their secrecy, I don’t like their sense of entitlement, I don’t like their Machiavellian machinations to try and upset ECDC and its endorsed candidates, and I don’t necessarily think that they do the best job for Buffalo. That doesn’t mean I would ever stoop so low as to spread vicious, defamatory rumors about him or his officials.

SOURCE WONDERS IF SELF PROCLAIMED PUNDIT REALLY BEHIND SLANDEROUS BROWN E-MAILS…WAS DAVIS TREATED LIKE ANY OTHER CITIZEN?…RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY ALIVE AND WELL ON LOCAL BLOGS

Any fireman will tell you that the first person who shows up to gawk at an arson fire is often the arsonist. Accordingly, one of our grey bearded sources is wondering if those wonderful guys who were nice enough to publish all those completely phoney and slanderous alleged e-mails involving Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown might not have been also their source.

“Isn’t it funny that the Pundit guys still had this junk after most others had long since deleted this junk,” he or she asks. “Also their chronic grammar mistakes and the ones contained in the bogus e-mails are similar…It kind of makes a fella wonder…”

Speaking of this and other local blogs, we understand that religious bigotry is alive and well these days on several of them. Blaming Islam for that horrible beheading incident in Orchard Park recently is like blaiming the Book of Revelations for OJ Simpson’s crimes. Are we really going to go down the road of religious ignorance and intolerance again?

Also their chronic grammar mistakes and the ones contained in the bogus e-mails are similar…It kind of makes a fella wonder

Gee, that sounds eerily like what a commenter wrote here, at Artvoice, regarding the writing style of the IMs posted, and text on Ali’s company’s website. I’m pretty anal about grammar and spelling – more so than Gramigna – so, I challenge Gramigna and his source to back up the statement that I make “chronic grammar mistakes”. That’s almost as offensive as suggesting I sent out the emails in question.

I think what pissed Mr. Gramigna’s source off is this last comment I wrote:

Whoever sent these emails last summer is an idiot, and an unimaginative one, to boot. These could have been made believable. To call this clumsy is an insult to clumsy things.

I’ll say it clearly and succinctly – whoever fed Glenn Gramigna the notion that I wrote the offending emails is the person who wrote the offending emails. Flushing that person out is precisely why I wrote those insulting lines.

27 Responses to “The Smell of Defamation In the Morning”

wow pundit. it’s amazing what a threatened lawsuit will do in the amateur hour world of “blog.” i’m kind of a first amendment guy myself, so never issued such a threat when i was being accused on this site of being on jack davis’s payroll, being on steve pigeon’s payroll, being a racist, being anti-semetic etc.

journalists live and die by the first amendment, and the thought of such a suit is repulsive. there is scant difference between you threatening to drag the loathsome gaminga into court and brown doing whatever it is he’s supposed have done to the equally loathsome ali.

[Otto dangles Archie out a window]
Archie: All right, all right, I apologise.
Otto: You’re really sorry.
Archie: I’m really really sorry, I apologise unreservedly.
Otto: You take it back.
Archie: I do, I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way fair comment, and was motivated purely by malice, and I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you, or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.
Otto: OK.

just funny seeing what happens when the shoe is put on the other foot.

i can’t recall the number of times you’ve said you can’t be sued for libel/defamation etc. for things you’ve allowed to appear on your web site. and then the first time something bad about you appears on somebody else’s web site you threaten to sue.

last fall, i found myself the object of a concerted attack by wnymedia, artvoice and the buffalo news. even the niagara county dem committee piled on and had me subpoenaed.

certainly i was damaged by the baseless charges, and i’ve got the bills from no fewer than three attorneys to prove it.

but part of being a professional in this business is having a thick skin. that i’m still running the niagara falls reporter and that i haven’t been charged with anything speaks for itself.

of course you and gramigna wouldn’t know anything about that. being a professional in this business, i mean.

i can’t recall the number of times you’ve said you can’t be sued for libel/defamation etc. for things you’ve allowed to appear on your web site. and then the first time something bad about you appears on somebody else’s web site you threaten to sue.

I can’t be sued for comments that I don’t write. I can be sued for comments that I write, or for posts that I write. I don’t write defamatory stuff, and I’m very careful about that.

Also, I don’t see where I threaten to sue Gramigna. Perhaps you can point that out for me.

last fall, i found myself the object of a concerted attack by wnymedia, artvoice and the buffalo news. even the niagara county dem committee piled on and had me subpoenaed.

I think the Council on Foreign Relations and the Knights Templar were involved with that. You need to get your tinfoil re-adjusted about your “concerted attack” which implies that those three entities worked in concert to write things about you.

Incidentally, Mike, last summer you were very perturbed when I called what Jack Davis did bribery, although he didn’t get charged with bribery. (Of course, I was merely using the Monroe County IP Chairman’s own words, but that’s not that important). Yet you came on this site and others predicting Bruce Battaglia’s imminent arrest and charge for God only knows what. To this day, I have yet to see Mr. Battaglia charged or arrested.

certainly i was damaged by the baseless charges, and i’ve got the bills from no fewer than three attorneys to prove it.

but part of being a professional in this business is having a thick skin. that i’m still running the niagara falls reporter and that i haven’t been charged with anything speaks for itself.

of course you and gramigna wouldn’t know anything about that. being a professional in this business, i mean.

No, but I do make a good living and consider this opinion writing thing to be a wonderful hobby, and the thousands of people who come here to read it and comment on it seem to enjoy it, too. Toodles!

Anyone who has spent any time reading this particular blog knows the Pundit wouldn’t do what he was accused of. I found that pretty absurd.

Humanist doesn’t seem to be able to EVER make a post without slamming someone or something. I’d never go after anyone’s ISP, But I’d LOVE to meet the Humanist—I’ll invite him but doubt he’d have the balls to show up without a police escort.

OTOH, Mike Hudson and I will meet for sure when the snow breaks. We disagree, but somehow seem to be able to agree to do exactly that.

And that’s what WNY needs more than anything else. The Great Unifier doesn’t seem to be doing well with doing it, so I guess it’s just up to individual citizens to put their differences aside to get things going.

somebody’s going to have to explain to me one day how the owner of a newspaper can be successfully sued for libel/defamation over a reader-written letter to the editor or even a paid advertisement and these blogee things seem — according to pundit — to be exempt from all laws, rules and regulations pertaining to that stuff. i would expect it is because case law regarding newspapers goes back more than 300 years while case law regarding blogs goes back like, um, three years.

as for the efforts by pundit, the buffalo news and artvoice to defame me through october of last year, what appeared on your web sites speaks for itself. never before has so much yakking been done by so many completely clueless individuals — bedenko, mccarthy, geoff whatever his name is — about a small, private business they all claim is not even on their radar.

btw, i never mentioned anything about a conspiracy, and have nothing but the highest regard for the knights templar. i always chalked the episode up to weak minds thinking alike.

hey hank, give me a call when you get into town. i’ll make sure and publish the time and place of our meeting in the paper so the cowardly mike can be sure not to accidentally stumble in.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

[…] we’ve only heard one side of the story, because law enforcement isn’t talking. Based on my suspicions that Ali was Gramigna’s “source” claiming that I wrote the Brown ema…, and the dubious information on Ali’s much-touted business’ website, I have to take […]

[…] Here’s the thing, Alan did not publish the emails in question, I did. Alan had no input into the publication of the article. I compiled the emails, added some context and published them on the frontpage of WNYMedia.net. Not on Buffalo Pundit’s blog. […]

[…] The Syaed Ali stuff? Hell, you can go right here and read all about that, from that time. Here is the article I wrote about Gramigna immediately after he published his “speculation”, and…. From that […]

[…] The Syaed Ali stuff? Hell, you can go right here and read all about that, from that time. Here is the article I wrote about Gramigna immediately after he published his “speculation”, and…. It should also be noted that I never published the emails in 2009 – it was Chris Smith who […]